Fugitive brothel owner charges federal vendetta

Friday, March 17, 2000 | 12:26 p.m.

Conforte also told the A&E network that his former lawyer, Peter Perry, who testified against the ranch owners and one-time manager Shirley Colletti, was the "biggest con artist in the world."

Conforte, who fled to Brazil in 1991 as the Internal Revenue Service was closing in on him for tax evasion, spoke on camera in an interview taped last year and aired this week.

He said the government was out to get him at all costs and used Perry in the court case that resulted in the final closure of the brothel east of Reno in August.

"The only thing he doesn't have is two horns," Conforte said of Perry. "He is the biggest con artist in the world. He is the biggest liar in the world. Any man who cons me, which he did, is the biggest con artist in the world."

Conforte, looking fit at 74, has traded his graying shock of hair for a closer crop dyed black. His raspy voice, tinged with a hint of Sicilian and New York accents, is unchanged.

Conforte said that when the government failed to extradite Conforte back to Reno, it used Perry to railroad Colletti and the corporation that took over the brothel by claiming that Conforte still ran the brothel and continued to profit from it.

Conforte said that Colletti only did what Perry told her to do, and that was to send brothel profits to Mustang shareholders. "She never sent me one penny," he said.

Colletti was convicted last July of racketeering and wire fraud in a case that started as an Internal Revenue Service indictment accusing Conforte of skimming millions from the brothel and shipping it to a Swiss bank account.

"She was only indicted because she would not lie against Joe Conforte," the former Mustang operator said.

"If they would make a deal that whatever sentence she got I would do, I would do her sentence. I'd do it tomorrow, because that's how much I appreciate loyalty," he said.